BareTail

BareTail is a real-time log file monitoring tool.

Features

Real-time file viewing

• Optimised real-time viewing engine
• View files of any size (> 2GB)
• Scroll to any point in the whole file instantly
• View files over a network
• Configurable line wrapping
• Configurable TAB expansion
• Configurable font, including spacing and offset to maximise use of screen space

Follow tail mode

• View the end of a growing file in real time, no matter how fast the file grows
• Like "tail -f" on Unix systems, but with many more features

Tail multiple files

• Simultaneously monitor multiple files for changes using tabs
• Visual indication on each tab of file status and changes
• Tabs may be positioned on any side of the window and oriented horizontally or vertically

Configurable highlighting

• Lines containing particular strings can be highlighted to help you notice important text
• Highlight colours are fully customisable

International character sets

• Unicode
• UTF-8
• ANSI
• ASCII

Many file formats

• Windows / DOS text files (lines end in CR/LF pairs)
• Unix text files (lines end in LF)
• Microsoft IIS logfiles (and other files terminated with a string of nulls)

Flexible configuration options and storage

• Many configurable user preferences
• Preferences can be saved to a file, the registry or not at all on exit
• Preferences are loaded from a file in the local directory, a file in the application directory or the registry (in that order)
• Preferences can be loaded and saved at any time by the user, and shared with other users

Single small executable, no installer

• No installation needed, start using the tool immediately
• Small executable can be run from the network
• Easy to temporarily install and then completely remove